It’s the last day of the Wall St. Journal’s free week, so I’ll point to its coverage of this story: “AOL Plans Service to Scour Internet for Travel Deals.” Yahoo has already made its intentions known in this space, and for my money, it’s only a matter of time before Google does as well.
AOL’s doing its deal with Kayak, which has been a Gary Price favorite for a long time.
America Online plans to enter the crowded online travel market early next year with a free service it claims will search dozens of Web sites for the best deals.
The move raises the profile of the new travel search-engine space. At least half a dozen sites, most of them launched in the past year, scour online travel agencies and Web sites of hotels, airlines and car-rental companies to find the best deals. AOL will work with closely held Kayak Software Corp., which launched a bare-bones airfare search in May at kayak.com.
Seems like AOL are doing some strategic re-organisation, as per the BBC news atricle ehre:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3998287.stm
A travel engine could be lucrative, but AOL need to do something about their brand in the face of general webmaster criticisms. Otherwise any new venture being seen to a highly “sanitised” version of travel – ie, “Search for holiday deals that make you *think* you’re in Greece, without ever having to physically be there…” 😉
Good stuff – kayak.com had me worried (being in the same industry and all) now that AOL are involved it’s safe to say that they’ll screw it up somehow. 🙂